Stay Free! Daily

Live on Satellite

Plug alert: I am going to be interviewed at 5PM today on "The Blog Bunker" at INDIE TALK 110 on behalf of Stay Free!

A quick too-late-to-matter Google search shows that the host is Joe Salzone, a twentysomething conservative and Paulite. As it happens, I'm reading Ira Glass's New Kings of Non-Fiction, specifically, Host, David Foster Wallace's essay on conservative talk radio. I'm a little wary about being forced onto the defensive but I figure I can hold my own.

In any event, I'll be talking into a microphone that will disperse my thoughts into the ether and I'll do my best to entertain.

UPDATE: The taping was fun, the host is not confrontational and I think it went well, even if I was a little stiff.The show will be rebroadcast tonight at 11PM. If anyone listens, feedback would be nice. Here is my own feedback to myself: "Be funnier."

Proof that history matters

I've become a devoted This American Life listener of late, but I must say that episode 333 show last month was exceptionally good. It starts off with a segment the military's Center for Army Lessons Learned... then segues into an interview with the head of the U.S. Army Military History Institute. I'd be hard-pressed to think of better illustrations of why history matters. Both segments illuminate why the US invasion of Iraq has gone horribly awry, and yet they're entirely nonpartisan (so nonpartisan that they would never use a phrase like "horribly awry"). I think my conservative parents would dig this episode as much as I do (if only they could figure out podcasting).

Clear Channel: truth in broadcasting?

You've got to love Clear Channel. Ever the trend-setter, the company has started selling naming rights to the newsrooms of some of its radio stations. Come January, listeners of WIBA-AM in Madison, Wisc., will begin hearing reports from the Amcore Bank News Center, while WISN-AM in Milwaukee offers reports from the PyraMax Bank News Center (and has, in fact, for the past two years).

With corporations sponsoring everything from city parks to school gymnasiums these days, this move should come as no surprise. But I don't know whether to blast Clear Channel or thank them. I mean, hey, as long as you're going to sell out your newsroom you might as well be upfront about it. And when it comes to shameless grabs for cash, I much prefer this to launching bogus pirate radio stations and pretending to have local DJs.

(Via Center for Media & Democracy)